1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an apparatus and method for transmitting and receiving a packet in a multimedia communication system, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for transmitting and receiving an Application Layer-Forward Error Correction (AL-FEC) packet in a multimedia communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A multimedia communication system, such as a Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) Media Transport (MMT) system, provides various large-capacity content such as High Definition (HD) content, Ultra High Definition (UHD) content and the like.
According to diversification of content and increases in large-capacity content such as HD and UHD content in a multimedia communication system, data congestion has become a serious issue. Due to this, content transmitted by a signal transmission device may not be completely transferred to a signal reception device, and some of the content is lost en route.
In general, data is transmitted on a packet basis, and accordingly data loss is generated on a transmission packet basis. Accordingly, if the transmission packet is lost on a network, the signal reception device cannot receive the lost transmission packet, and thus cannot determine the meaning of data within the lost transmission packet. As a result, audio signal quality deterioration, video picture quality deterioration, video picture break, caption omission, file loss and the like, may occur.
Therefore, the MMT system may enhance a whole system reliability using various error-control schemes in order to reduce information data loss due to an error which may occur on a network according to channel status. A typical example of an error-control scheme is an Application Layer-Forward Error Correction (AL-FEC) scheme.
A multimedia communication system such as an MMT system requires usage of a Forward Error Correction (FEC) code supporting a codeword length and a code rate, which are varied according to a code rate and delay time required by a service.
If a conventional AL-FEC scheme is used, a signal transmission and reception apparatus should use different FEC codes according to a codeword length and a code rate, which increases the complexity of the MMT system making it difficult to implement the MMT system.